Where to Stream the Australian Open Online

The Australian Open is a tennis Grand Slam held annually at Melbourne Park in Australia. The tournament is the first Grand Slam of the calendar year and is followed by the French Open, Wimbledon, and finally, the US Open.

The Australian Open is held in the middle of January for two weeks. The tournament features men’s and women’s singles, men’s, women’s, and mixed doubles, as well as junior championships.

The 2023 tournament is scheduled to start on Monday, January 16th. The men’s final will be on the last day of the tournament, Sunday, January 29th. The women’s final will be a day before, on Saturday, January 28th.

Viewers in Australia

Nine will be showing the action on live tv, and its streaming service 9Now will be streaming the tournament on-demand. The good news is that Nine and 9Now are both free and easy to access from any computer or device. 9Now even has a mobile and tablet app on both the App Store and Google Play.

The times are kindest to viewers in Australia. The day session starts at 8:00 am CST, and the night session at 4:00 pm CST.

With Ashleigh Barty triumphing in the women’s singles last year and Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis winning the men’s doubles, there is bound to be plenty of home support this time around.

Viewers in the USA

ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN+ will show matches from across Melbourne park. If you don’t have access to these channels, new streaming services like FuboTV and SlingTV have the rights to many of the grand slams, so you can get your tennis fix.

For those Danielle Collins and Taylor Fritz fans, the times are upside down. The day session starts at 4:00 pm ET, and the night session begins at midnight ET.

Bare in mind, the East Coast is 16 hours behind Melbourne. This means much of the later rounds, including the quarterfinals and semifinals, will be overnight for viewers stateside.

Viewers in the UK

The BBC gave up its rights to air the Aussie open in 2015 due to budget cuts. Since then, Eurosport (part of Discovery+ and Disney) has had the rights to stream the grand slam tournament.

Those without access to the Eurosports channel can stream every serve and slice on the Discovery+ website and app. Unfortunately, this isn’t free and will set you back £6.99 GBP a month.

Free Australian open live streams

Free Aussie open streams are hard to come by, in fact, there are basically none available on free-to-air. Much of the tennis is now behind paywall subscriptions such as Hulu, the Tennis Channel, and FuboTV.

Based on our research, the best way to view the Australian open tennis would be to be in Australia, that way, you’d benefit from Nine’s free streams.

But how can you pretend you’re in Australia without actually flying down under?

The answer is a VPN.

Using a VPN to stream the action live from Melbourne

It isn’t surprising that the Australian stream is free.

Naturally, TV channels and streaming sites based in Australia will be showing their flagship tournament.

If you aren’t down under and try logging into Nine’s streaming service, you’d be met with a message saying that you have been geoblocked.

Here your foreign IP address has alerted the good people at Nine that you aren’t actually in Australia, and your access is denied.

How and why a VPN helps

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a cybersecurity tool that lets you act as if you are in a different country by giving you an IP address within it.

Let’s say you want to catch a men’s singles semifinal between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, all you have to do is tell your VPN to select a server in Australia. You’re then free to browse the web and, more importantly, Nine’s streaming service for free as you masquerade as a tennis fan down under.

What to look for in your VPN

There are a whole host of VPNs out there, some are paid subscriptions, and some are available to download to your internet browser for free.

What should you look for in your VPN if you want to stream tennis?

• Speed – There is nothing worse than a stream where the audio and video aren’t synced, especially in tennis, who doesn’t love the satisfying sound of a ball on strings? That rules out free VPNs, as they don’t provide the speeds you need to stream in HD. Established companies have servers optimized for streaming, these are who we want to be focusing on.
• Secure – Pinging your IP address into Australia to watch the doubles final isn’t something you should be shouting from the rooftops. You want a VPN that can protect you. Your VPN should have a zero-log policy. This means your browsing history is regularly deleted. Your VPN should offer military-grade encryption, typically 256-bit AES, complete with DNS leak protection and a kill switch that prevents your data from ever being leaked.
• User-friendly – Using a VPN should be simple. Most VPNs on the market are plug-and-play. You don’t have to be a tech wiz to get one working. Most paid VPNs have dedicated customer support teams that can help you set up if you aren’t the most tech-literate.
• Effective – Your VPN should have servers in Australia for it to be effective in steaming the Australian Open men’s tournament. It’s worth checking that your VPN has multiple servers in each country, this way, if one is down, you can jump onto another.
• Compatibility – Your VPN should be compatible across a number of devices, perfect for that second week of the tournament, where there are plenty of clashes between top players.

How to install your VPN

Best VPNs for streaming the Australian Open

ExpressVPN

Our top pick!

• Always evades internet control in the PRC
• Keeps ahead of the Netflix VPN detection algorithm
• Benchmark tests show excellent speed

Check best price ExpressVPN Review

ExpressVPN is one of the premium options when it comes to paid VPNs. It has some of the tightest no-log policies around. It’s no log claims have been confirmed by an audit conducted by PwC. It operates stealth servers as well, which stops censorship and surveillance.

ExpressVPN is easy to install and provides 3000 servers across 94 different countries. ExpressVPN has a dedicated 24-hour support team to help if you struggle to install your VPN. They will also help you configure it to optimize streaming.

Express VPN offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, and at the moment, if you subscribe and pay for 12 months upfront, they throw in an extra 3 months for free.

Surfshark

• Smart DNS service, understands the technology
• Comprehensive security add-on package.
• No data throughput limits and has a no-logs policy

Check best price Surfshark Review

Surfshark boasts over 3200+ servers across 100 countries. Surfshark blocks ads, banners, and trackers, and its CleanWeb feature protects all your devices from phishing and malware-infected websites. They also have an automatic IP rotator, which makes it harder to track as your surf the web. If you pay for two years upfront, Surfshark is by far the best value-for-money option out there.

NordVPN

• More US city locations than its rivals
• Includes malware protection
• No-logs policy

Check best price NordVPN Review

NordVPN runs 5500+ servers across 59 countries, it is now a well-established VPN and has dedicated IPs all over the globe, with so many servers, you are bound to find one that suits your needs. It boasts ultra-fast connection as well as a malware and ad block built in. It is compatible across a number of devices and can also be installed as a browser extension.

Nord VPN offers three different levels of paid membership. The Plus tier provides a cross-platform password manager and a data breach scanner. If you upgrade to the highest tier, the Complete tier, you are entitled to 1TB of encrypted cloud storage as well. Each subscription gives you a 30-day money-back guarantee, similar to Express VPN if you pay for a year or two in advance, you get 3 months free.

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